Redemption

6 hours earlier: Redemit

It was a pleasant day in Canterlot, no weather was scheduled, and the skies were a clear blue. Business was brisk with ponies moving about their business, the occasional human speckled in the crowd following after their owners. Suddenly, everypony's attention was brought to the sky by a bright flash shortly followed by a concussive blast high up in the sky, and a magical ripple heralded the appearance of a dragon plummeting to earth.

I shake my head, trying to clear it of the pain and nausea caused by the unstable translation from one reality to another with entirely too much mass involved. This almost certainly explains why I am in the air rather than in the cave the portal was supposed to have sent us to. But then, there are larger matters to deal with, namely the swarm queen currently wearing the guise of a dragon I'm clinging to with such tenacity. A short scream heralds the death of another comrade, but my training kicks in and enables me to block out the sound as I take stock of my situation.

We are fairly high in the air, but at least one of the erstwhile dragon's wings is completely shredded, I behold with a certain vicious sense of satisfaction. The other one is still beating, trying to stabilize the queen's fall. That means the beast is still conscious and functional, which I intend to fix. Releasing a hand from the spine I've been holding onto, and pulling a white sword out of its sheath on my waist, I plunge it into the left shoulder joint, eliciting a spray of fluorescent green blood as well as a scream of rage and pain from the 'dragon'. I pull myself forward to the base of the spine where it merges into the long serpentine neck of the 'dragon' as the creature reaches back with a bloodied claw to grab the offending being on its back. Acting quickly, I focus and pump energy from the crystal reserves built into the spine of my armor into the white blade causing it to brighten slightly as its temperature skyrockets. The dragon screams and convulses from the energy bleeding into its shoulder socket. An audible alarm sounds inside my helmet telling me my energy reserves are getting low. I'm now down to one crystal, or 20%. I briefly consider just putting it all into the dragon, ending it all right here, but I have my orders, so I do something that is definitely on my list of Last Resort - Bad Ideas. I draw my second blade, this one a deep purple, much reminiscent of a thundercloud, out of its sheath on my opposite hip and plunge it directly into the spine of the 'dragon', causing the creature to scream again. The sound seems to drill into my head painfully as it turns from a bestial roar to the trilling death throes of an insect. Focusing on the black blade I repeat my performance with the white one, only in reverse. I leech power FROM the swarm queen, causing the gray empty crystals on my helmet's hud to glow a deep malevolent green, and the convulsions of the creature beneath me start slowing. Eventually, it ceases to move altogether as we fall steadily.

That done, I look down to see what my escape options are, only to see the ground about 50 feet away and coming up fast. “Crud,” is the only word I have time to utter before my jump jets fire automatically, shedding as much velocity as possible before the impending impact. As I am torn off the creature's back, losing my grip on the blades, I have a moment to glimpse cobblestone and a market display full of fruit before rolling into a ball as I've been trained and then . . . nothing.

Past: Frix (pre-sentience)

Somepony was calling me, 'Frix . . .' No, my name is Redemit, changed in honor of when my queen accepted me into her guard . . . wait, this is a memory, am I dreaming? Why is it so hard to think? I shook my head, confusion forgotten as my trained responses came to the fore, and most of my intelligence stopped functioning, looking around I saw more creatures like myself, my pack mates. 'Humans' a voice in my head seemed to whisper, but I didn't respond. My Alpha was calling, 'Handler' the voice whispered, I ignored it. Moving forward I shuffled past my pack mates as their alphas handled them, some fitting them out in armor, others just interacting with them with the occasional compliment or treat to keep them docile as they're readied for combat. “Drop-point in 4 minutes,” a voice called out, the sounds impacting on my consciousness without being understood, as I saw and moved toward my Alpha, a small 4 footed lime green creature that was looking my way with a gentle smile. 'Vine Bloom, Pegasus Mare' the voice whispered. She was dressed in white armor with gold trim consisting of a fitted helm with interlocking plates leading down the back of her head terminating in a cross-link just behind her light blue mane but before her wings with several metallic plates covering her withers and flanks, and wrapping around the chest from just above the point of her shoulder to just under her throat, with shoes on the end of each leg. I somehow knew under the plates on her flanks was a vine circling around itself. “Cutie mark”, I flinched, suppressing the voice.

She waved me over, speaking in a slightly concerned tone, but none of the words were a command, so I ignored them. I simply took comfort in the warm tones as I shuffled forward and went to one knee in front of her, allowing her to move around me, checking the various buckles and cinches on my armor. This consisted of a clam-shell chest plate with pauldrons on my shoulders, an underlying 'shirt' of a woven material closely resembling kevlar, with several layers of padding underneath it to reduce friction. On my legs, additional plates covered the front, with a chain mail layer underneath them protecting the sides and back of my legs. Pads covered the front part of the knee caps and greaves to protect my shins, and another woven under-layer reduced friction from the armor plates and my boots. Covering my arms was more chain-mail, with vambraces and fingerless gloves made from a softer(relatively speaking), more flexible material leaving my hands free to work.

"Ready check," her voice intoned inside my head, triggering a trained response. I flexed my muscles and moved around slightly to ensure that the armor wasn't set improperly. Tilting my head, I gave a small chirp as I waited her verdict. “Very good,” she cooed as she circled back in front of me placing a hoof on my knee to nuzzle my face affectionately, causing me to mew as I nuzzled her in response.

“You sure you want to do that? These humans aren't exactly trained to be pleasant,” A voice states from behind me, causing my Alpha to tense up slightly as she pulls back to look past me.

“Life's a calculated risk. Besides, I've been with him since birth, he's not going to harm me.” My Alpha says as I twist around looking behind me at another alpha 'Ice wind, Unicorn Mare' I don't acknowledge the voice beyond leaning into my Alpha slightly. “Coming up on drop-point, load up.” A voice calls out, at the command 'load up', I reach out behind my Alpha and pull my weapon, a two handed bastard sword, off the rack as the world seems to ripple and come apart, plunging my consciousness back into the present.

6 hours ago: Redemit

I return to consciousness feeling my aching body complain. Taking stock of the situation and finding myself banged up but still alive, I open my eyes to find my helmet covered. I brush a hand across my visor, scraping off plant matter and clearing my vision. I clamber up to find myself in a marketplace, with multiple market stands surrounding me. Most of the immediately surrounding stands are knocked over or otherwise destroyed. Fortunately, it also appears the occupants have fled judging by the various items left lying around. Looking around, I spy the body of the swarm queen laying on its side. I limp over, flexing my arms and wings and finding my flight muscles in working order, albeit with that weird minty feel they have after being healed. I nod as my suit continues to pump energy into me, repairing my damaged muscle tissues. Reaching the creature's corpse, I find the storm blade still lodged in the creature's spinal cord and pull it free with a grunt. Not seeing my other weapon on this side, I circle around, holding off on using my jump jets or wings until my systems have had time to stabilize again.

Reaching the front of the creature, I come to a stop as I see an armored pegasus clutched in one of its claws. Walking forward slowly, I swallow thickly as I kneel down and reach out to the suited figure. Its armor is buckled and rent, and the exterior readouts show no life-signs. I know the power crystals on its back have automatically dumped their loads into the armor and the body inside, theoretically rendering the suit useless and damaging the soft tissues of her body beyond the capability of an infester to utilize. Releasing the seal on my helmet, I take a deep breath as the 'crystal' visor liquefies and flows into the collar of my armor and the 'plates' comprising the crown fold back and slide down into their niches in the back of my armor. The smells of the strange new city assault my nostrils as I breathe in, surprisingly pleasant. Sighing, I rest a hand on the shoulder of the fallen pegasus for a moment, saying a silent prayer before moving on.

I inspect the now chitin-covered body of the swarm queen, portions still hardening as it reverts form after its demise. Taking a moment, I look it over. What was once changeling has grown. The insectoid wings have grown longer, and a second set has been added underneath the first. The abdomen is longer; the tail is no longer composed of hair, but is rather long and leathery, almost skin-like.

Looking around the body for my other blade, I catch sight of a white object to my right underneath the body. I step towards it, crouching down and putting my left shoulder against the body before straightening up slowly. A tingle goes through my limbs as my suit responds to the strain by feeding magic into a strength rune on my armor, increasing my available force and causing the already-damaged cobblestone beneath me to buckle further, till I find solid leverage and rock the body over far enough to reveal my blade. Reaching down carefully, I grab the handle and pull it loose, leaping clear as the body settles back into the crater it punched into the ground.

Hearing something, my reflexes throw me into a roll to my right as something goes through the space where I'd just been standing. Rising to my feet, I snarl silently as the rent and broken body of my comrade pulls her rear legs under her body and shakily stands, turning her 'head' towards me.

Infested. Possibly the worst situation any sentient being can find themselves in, having an infester burrow into your spinal column and start reshaping your body through a combination of dark magic and specific poisons their body naturally produces. Once infested, the host can continue to act as if nothing is out of the ordinary, until such time as the controlling presence decides it's the opportune moment to cause damage. Or, in the case of the recently deceased, the body can be kept 'active' for a short time fueled by said dark magics and used as a weapon of terror, demoralizing the enemy when their own dead rise against them.

“Sorry, old friend,” I whisper softly and ready my blades. Taking a balanced stance, I twist slightly bringing the white blade to the fore as I hold the storm blade back slightly, waiting for it to attack. Without the controlling presence of the queen to provide tactics, the infested simply moves forward to attack, jumping forward and rearing to strike me with its fore-hooves. Narrowing my focus, I move.

Sliding forward and to the right, I dodge the rightmost hoof, and use my fore blade to knock the leftmost hoof away as my other blade slices through the knee joint, shearing armor, muscle, and tendon, and removing the lower half of the infested's forelimb. As it collapses down onto the ground, I bring the storm blade out in a magic powered strike that slices the top of its head off just above the eyes. With a spray of pink matter and semi congealed blood, the liberated portions of its cranium and helmet flip off and roll away. Before the creature can react further, I draw a leg back and kick it in the side, slamming it off the ground and into a market stand. Following quickly I stab into the ex-mare's chest cavity with the white blade, magic pulsing into down the blade and converting to heat inside the body, further destroying both the remains inside and any still-functional portions of the suit.

After a moment I pull my blade up and out of the corpse, pulsing power into both blades, causing the organic material coating the blades to flake and fall off. One problem resolved, I lower the blades and turn to consider the larger corpse still laying nearby, awaiting purification. Stepping forward, I check my power levels, noting their slow rise as my suit draws ambient magic out of the atmosphere. Raising both blades together, I plunge them into the creature's body.

As I'm preparing to dump energy into the foul beast, I hear the sound of multiple creatures entering the square. Looking to my right, I watch as at least a dozen lightly-armored ponies enter the marketplace in a tight group. Triggering the seal on my suit, the helmet reassembles around my head hiding my face from view and bringing up the suit's A.I. After assessing the current situation, the A.I. labels the newcomers as unknowns, possibly hostile, and then informs me there's multiple air-borne unknowns above me as well.

“Well, crud,” I glance around. The helmet's interior surface recreates the exterior view while showing the outside world an opaque surface with a stylized white skull on an orange background. “Time to go.” Turning back to the task at hand I feed power into both blades. The runes on their spines light up briefly before the large corpse starts to cook very quickly from the inside out. 'Probably doesn’t smell too good,' I think with a certain amount of irony. I hold the power flow steady for another couple of seconds until I am confident the corpse is fully cleansed and the site is sterile.

Pulling my blades free and turning around, I face the ponies spreading out to confront me, weapons out and approaching cautiously. “Hold, creature,” One of them called out. Crud.

'Assuming you run into the locals before the contact teams, break contact if at all possible, but try to avoid destruction of any property and at all costs, no killing.' That order sits at the forefront of my mind as I consider the locals spreading out to surround me. First things first: Options and equipment.

Escape: Definitely a viable option. In an urban environment, assuming the jump gears holds up, I should be more mobile even limited to ground or roof level. Air: Not easy, but doable. While not the best flier in my squad, I feel confident that unless I run into their version of the Resurgent Dawn, I have a high probability of breaking contact at or outside the city limits. I recall glimpsing a forest down the base of the cliff the city rested on, so evasion at that point should be possible. Not a high chance of getting away unscathed, so I should probably try to talk it over first.

Attack: No, just no.

Surrender: Primary Objective unsecured. Mission is Alpha Priority. Not an option.

Equipment: Wings are functional. Power Levels 86% and rising, corruption detected; exactly what I expected feeding life energy into a reservoir designed specifically for magical energy was beyond me. Ranged weaponry: Lost, assuming destroyed in the fall. Explosives: Depleted. Close Combat: Two swords - 30 in. blades, baton, tower shield, buckler, Knife - 7 in. blade. Food/Water: Protein tabs – 30, Rations – 7 days, Water – 1 canteen(Full), 1 camel bag(Half) Rope: Never enough, 10 meters, 1/8 in. 1500 weight. Med-kit: Yep, still there. 2 rolls - 3 meter magic laced bandage, 30 pain tabs, 40 water purification tablets.

Lethal is not an option, and no immediate backup, so baton and buckler it is, should suffice for disabling pursuit. Moving slowly, as to avoid provoking the locals, I sheathed my blades and held my hands out at about stomach level, fingers splayed, as I considered the marketplace I was in looking for the best avenue of escape. But first, backup.

Raising my right hand slowly, I press two fingers to my helm just in front of my ear, triggering the communications crystal embedded in my helm, shifting to the command frequency. “ Echo Two-Four to HQ, the swarm queen has been terminated and the site has been sterilized, but I've run into locals, please advise." I wait for a few seconds but receive no response. The armored ponies in front of me continue to slowly advance. "Echo Two-Four to HQ, please respond," Nothing. Shifting to the Night-guard frequency, I try again. "Echo Six to any surviving Night-guard units, please respond." As the range between me and the first of the armored ponies, in this case a pegasus, falls to about 7 meters, I sigh. I'm out of time, and the next communications window isn't scheduled until two hours past the local sundown. "Time to go." I mutter to myself.

Pulling a whisper of magic from the reservoir on my back, I pull a telescopic baton from my belt. The contact and subsequent energy feed from my glove cause it to extend and harden as the 'smart' shield mounted on my left arm expands to its medium extension, projecting protection from chest level to around my knees. I crouch slightly, minimizing my exposure, and turn to put the corpse of the creature at my back, limiting their ability to flank me.

The guard closest to me inevitably regards this as a hostile move and tenses up for the attack. I take a deep breath, and smooth out my respiratory cycle for the coming melee as Vine trained me. Suddenly, an authoritative female voice calls out, "Hold!" Both the pegasus and I pause as the guard ponies continue to stare at me. I glance off to the left behind my opaque visor, carefully not moving the helm to give my focus away. I see an armored unicorn mare with a stylized mane on her helm approaching. 'Officer maybe?' I muse silently as she draws closer.

She moves to stand about even with the first pegasus guard and looks at me as I in turn consider her. She is a white unicorn mare, with a blue mane just visible underneath what I assume is an officer's crest on her golden helm. Her armor seems to consist of several plates down the back of her neck and a blanket-like affair of plates covering from her withers to her flanks. Several strategically-placed pieces of armor cover her sides and wrap down around her chest to provide frontal protection as well. This seems to leave the throat relatively unguarded, but considering the fact they are guards-ponies, I figure the trade-off is worth it.

She stares at me for a short time, probably trying to figure out precisely what I am, as I don't exactly have the horns of a minotaur, and I can hardly be human, with my wings, and such advanced tactics and weaponry. I've used magic as well, not something your average human can do, so she is at a loss to decide just what I am. After a moment of obviously trying to set her thoughts in order, and wrinkling her nose at the smell of burnt flesh and ozone in the air, she looks at my 'face', shivering a bit in spite of her own best efforts as she stares into the 'eyes' of the skull emblazoned on my helmet. She opens her mouth. "Who are you and what are you?"

Upon hearing those words, I can't help but give a dry chuckle, admittedly, a VERY dry chuckle. "Private Frix, ma'am, and as for what I am, I'm afraid that's been classified," I state simply.

She gives a snort at my words but drops the subject for the moment as she looks behind me at the still smoking and admittedly LARGE corpse behind me. "What in Celestia's name is THAT then?!"

Glancing behind myself, I feel my inner jackass trying to come up with a retort, but decide against it, instead simply asking, "Are you familiar with changelings, ma'am?"

Staring at me semi-incredulously, she states, "You mean to tell me that THING is a changeling? I don't know what you are, but you are crazy if you think I'm going to believe that's a changeling!"

I tilt my head to one side considering her quietly for a moment, then respond "It's a changeling alright, or at least, it was, before they experimented with a highly toxic mutagenic poison and dark magic. Now, it's what we've labeled a swarmling, or in this one's case: A swarm queen" I finally state, watching and gauging the surrounding ponies, waiting for the opportune moment to make my move. "Now, they've become little more than beasts, but their population growth is enormous, and . . . well, we lost the war."

As I'm talking the various guards arrayed in front of me react with various degrees of disgust or outright fear, until I make the remark about losing, at which point most of them just look confused. The officer in front of me opens her mouth to respond when one of the guards finally sees the remains of my comrade laying partially obscured in the wreckage of a fruit stand.

"Ma'am, look over there," he calls out, causing her to stop and glance to where the stallion is pointing. Her composure cracks for a moment as she gasps at the sight of the brutalized body.

I take a moment to mourn my comrade before speaking out, "Life is a calculated risk; none of us live forever; her time came up," I state softly, looking around at the surrounding ponies. "I trust you'll treat her remains with respect. I know your command will take her armor for study, but she fought her way across 200 miles and two worlds before she fell, and even then, she died a hero."

Glancing at me in a semi-confused fashion, the officer asks "What do you mean?" Obviously, she's received a few too many mental bucks in quick succession.

I sigh. "I mean I'm asking you to show her body the respect due any soldier that falls in defense of home and country, since I cannot," I explain, watching the ponies share looks as they try to make heads or tails of the situation.

The officer tenses. "Soldier? You're both soldiers?" ...Really? What did you think I was? Many of the guard take their cue from their officer and again focus their attention on the odd creature standing in front of them.

Fighting the urge to face-palm, I shake my head slightly. "Look, I don't have time for this. I've got my orders; there were places I needed to be and important artifacts from my world I was supposed to be securing before I got distracted. Yes, I am a soldier. No, I won't be going around harming anypony. In fact, I'm not even supposed to be talking to you now, but getting my ass dropped into the middle of a frikkin city tends to make doing that hard. Besides, I need to make sure that you know to burn this Swarm Queen. While it SHOULD be sterilized, you don't want to see what happens if it isn't."

At my words, many of the soldiers tense up as the officer's face hardens, her posture steadying into a semi aggressive stance. "You're not going anywhere! You're under arrest for destruction of private property, disturbing the peace, and probably something about being a SOLDIER in ANOTHER COUNTRY!" She practically screams, poor mare, really should have reported in sick today.

Again, resisting the urge to face-palm, I try again. "Look, I understand your point. I'm just afraid I can't afford to not do my duty, and I'm now short another comrade. I have neither the time nor patience to continue arguing it with some poor city guards-pony. I need to go, and you can't exactly keep me."

Opening her mouth with an angry, possibly affronted look upon her muzzle, she starts to retort when a loud crack is heard with a flash of light. When my visor clears, it reveals five ponies in armor more reminiscent of my own than the city guards'. The first, a solid gray unicorn stallion, with a light blue mane, has a cutie mark showing three lightning bolts forming a rough triangle. The second unicorn on his left, a mare, has what looks like a silver cloud of dots, possibly insects of some sort. And on her left is an earth pony, a rather large one too. He looks like he spent too much time around the gym, or possibly had a bad run-in with some engorgement magic, seriously, he looks like a rock golem and a pony got together and had kids, how would that even work? For a cutie mark he has a boulder, classy. On the lightning unicorn's right float two pegusai, one with a stylized breath of wind and the other with a cloud and hail. Obviously, backup has arrived. Crud.

The unicorn at the forefront glances around the market, looking at me, the large corpse, and finally the officer-pony. "That's enough, Sergeant, this just became a Rising Dawn operation. Your orders are to assist the members of the Rising Dawn in whatever manner they require. For now, fan out; we're taking this one in, alive." The stallion barks, watching me with the confident and professional demeanor I'm used to seeing from members of my world's Resurgent Dawn.

'Not good' is my first thought on seeing the new arrivals. Two pegusai, two unicorns, and an earth pony that looks capable of bucking buildings, time to go. Pulling a glow-stick out of one of my pouch, and putting a sharp pulse of magic into it, overloading the crystal, I toss it up and close my eyes. While the visor has a theoretical limit to how much light it will reproduce, theory and reality rarely agree. A sharp crack and the tinkle of small crystal shards peppering the ground as well as various shouts and other exclamations of pain herald the burst detonation of my field-expedient flash-bang.

Bolting right, I sprint down a lane of stalls, using them to obscure my line of sight on the obvious fire-team as I head for the nearest exit, an alleyway in this case. 'Options,' I clamor to myself, trying to think on the fly. The sounds of heavy hooves hitting the cobblestone, as well as the cracks and crunches of something flattening vendors' stalls behind me, cause an additional burst of adrenaline as I tear down the row. Glancing back, I see the earth pony living up to his cutie mark and bowling over everything in his path. What it didn't indicate is just how fast he was, too. At this rate, he would catch up before I could make it to the alleyway. With multiple pegusai already in the air, and with the two spec-ops pegusai now in the playing, this was about to become very touchy, very fast. With a mental groan and the bitter recrimination that 'I'm not trained for this!', I return my attention to the front and start paying close attention to the air above me and just how close the pony shaped wrecking ball is behind me.

Sensing an opportunity to take me down, and possible for revenge, one of the airborne pegasus guards dives at me from my high 8 o'clock position. Unfortunately for him, I'm ready. When he is too close to pull up, I spin and trigger my jump jets, completely killing my forward momentum and pogoing myself above the earth pony as the unfortunate pegasus makes a close acquaintance with the flat face of my shield.

Shrugging off the now-floored pony, I feel myself settle back to the ground. Landing on my feet, I throw myself over a stall as a bolt of magic flies through my prior location. Shooting to my feet, I again start running, angling for the alley and the earth pony standing in the entrance, waiting and ready to block my bid for freedom.

"All right, big guy, lets play," I call out with a vicious smile on my face and magic coursing through my body. Unbeknownst to me, my crystal reserves have burned through the magic they'd absorbed and are now feeding the swarm queen's energy into me. The side effects of which, I can't begin to guess, but I guess I'd add rashness, and a general sense of rage to the list.

"Now!" a voice calls out behind me, reminding me I've forgotten to watch my back. I've spent too long working in a group; I'm too used to playing the same part as the earth pony obviously, and now I'm about to pay for it. That semi-prophetic statement is validated as twin beams of magic impact on my form, coalescing around me, and stopping my forward momentum. I find myself frozen in place as the earth pony in front of me paws the earth, finding optimum traction for his charge.

Forcing the rage down, I take a step back in my mind as the appropriate strategies for breaking magic holds come forward as I have need of them. Unfurling my wings, I channel magic down the front edges, shaping the energy into a 'blade' of magic that severs the flow of external magic. The destabilized energies binding me in place dissipate or funnel into my armor as the specialized channels written into the armor itself leech as much energy as possible into my reservoir. Grunting as I break free, I have an instant to brace myself before I raise my shield up in front of me. The earth pony pauses just more than a pony-length away, spinning on his front hooves and bringing his back hooves around in a massive buck.

In a magical recreation of the immovable object meeting the unstoppable force, the runes on my shield react by drawing deep on my energies and channel them into an opposing force causing a large blast of light and a minor shock wave of air to explode around the two of us as we stand there for an eternal moment in time: the pony standing on his fore-hooves with his back legs held straight out impacting on my shield as I stand slightly crouched, wings rampant towards the heavens, sunlight sparkling through their crystalline structure.

Being the first to recover, I sidestep as the earth pony slowly settles down to the ground, unconscious, or at least stunned. Glancing back I see the two unicorns standing behind me, looking semi-stunned by my performance. Giving them a nod of respect, I turn back around and dash into the alleyway.

Once out of immediate sight of the pursuit, and with sporadic cover making it hard for the airborne ponies to keep track of me, I check my power levels, wincing when I see the readout sitting at 30%. That run-in with the earth pony shaped . . . thing had taken quite a bit of energy, and while I'd won, I'd taken some serious knocks myself including a bone bruise THROUGH the armor that was still healing. Triggering my jump jets, I proceed to skim along the wall, overshooting many of the various pieces of debris and other minutia that make proceeding down the alleyways harder. I swap walls as needed to avoid other things, such as windows, external chimneys, and the occasional weird architecture. 'Seriously? A building that looks like Swiss cheese? Who made the zoning laws here?' I think before I take another turn to further throw off my pursuers.

With no real idea where I'm headed beyond 'out of the city', I need to take my bearings. I start looking for a landmark I can scale without attracting too much attention. Judging by the number of ponies in what I assume is civilian apparel, I've managed to break outside whatever cordon they have set up, which doesn't stop the occasional over-flight of guards-ponies from passing overhead.

Spying a larger building that looks promising, with plenty of exterior architecture to lose myself in, I pause, taking stock of my power levels: 27% and power draw stable. I decide to take the chance and begin making my way towards it. Taking a moment to get a running start any time I have to cross an active street or thoroughfare, I do my level-headed best to just shoot from cover to cover at just under rooftop level. This doesn't stop me from garnering a certain amount of attention, and I hear the occasional shout behind me, but most of the populace seems in relatively high spirits, signs of good morale. Obviously not a country at a war, or if they are, they think they're winning it handily. Not the best sign from my perspective, but it'll be up to the contact teams to get the best deal they can from the situation, not mine.

Proceeding with some caution, I creep as close to the structure as I can get without leaving cover, taking a moment to examine it, trying to tell just what it is. With the city's bastion up the 'hill', so to speak, I'm sure it isn't something military in function. It has a generally round shape with plenty of columns and stylized windows extending around the multileveled exterior giving it rather the odd look. Its placement makes no sense from a tactical standpoint, but then, after the Swiss Cheese Emporium I've just passed, I can't exactly say with certainty it isn't.

Shaking my head to dispel the idle musings, I consider again how to best traverse the open ground between myself and the structure. A busy street measuring at least 30 feet wide starts in front of the buildings I'm sheltering between, followed by at least another 25-30 feet of fanciful topiary design. 'That's not happening,' I think. Taking a moment to take stock, I notice a familiar tension in my limbs. The feelings of exhaustion can be remedied with the right application of magic, but overexposure will put you down for a significant period of time. Going who knows how long without eating isn't helping either, on top of at least 8 hours of active combat, and healing several rather extensive injuries; further excursions will have to wait. I need to eat and get some rest.

Making my way in a direction I decide to call south, away from the bastion towards the north end, I keep an eye out for any warehouses or unoccupied buildings. As luck would have it, I come across a decent sized building that, for whatever reason, looks unused at the moment. Moving forward cautiously, I draw a crystal out of belt a pouch and hold it up, feeding power to it. Looking through it, I scan for any kind of alarm or other charms. Finding nothing, I then proceed to move to a window, rubbing a simple unlock rune to ease the latch open, I slide myself in feet first and fall into a crouch as my eyes scan the room. Coming up empty, I quickly move to re-latch the window. Finding a corner out of easy view, I crouch down, triggering a scan of my surroundings. Plenty of magical creatures nearby(Obviously), and somepony's scrying the city nearby, but apparently, my mad dash across the city's alleyways managed to throw off my pursuers, both physical and magical.

Sitting back, I take a deep breath before popping the seal on my helm. I reach down and pull out a nutrient bar, staring at it with the distaste of soldiers everywhere. I finally break down and start gnawing a piece of it off. I sit back and chew stolidly with the occasional sip of water to help break the dense material down into a digestible state. After finishing the bar I take another swallow of water before laying down along the wall and setting the suit's timer to wake me an hour after nightfall and a proximity alarm to warn me of impending discovery. With that taken care of, my weary body carries me off to sleep quickly.